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Articles by Matt Cowgill
The RBA’s new Board meeting format gets its first outing
The RBA building at 65 Martin Place under construction circa 1962. This week we learned that the RBA’s headquarters at 65 Martin Place is so riddled with asbestos it will have to be stripped back to its steel frame as part of an ongoing renovation now expected to cost $850 million.
Visualising the 2022 Australian federal election with geom_sugarbag
Maps are great! But sometimes they can be a bit deceptive. This is particularly the case when the population density of a place varies greatly, as it does in Australia. Australians live in a small number of large-ish cities, with vast expanses of largely empty space in between them. This is a challenge to visualise. For example, think of Australian federal electorates. Each one has roughly the same number of voters in it - a bit over 100,000. But they occupy vastly different amounts of space.
Now is an especially bad time to cut unemployment benefits
Now is an especially bad time to cut unemployment benefits by Brendan Coates and Matt Cowgill Published in Pearls and Irritations, 25 February 2021 The extra $25 a week to the JobSeeker rate from April puts the unemployment payment right back where it was in 2007, some 14 years ago, at 41 per cent of the minimum wage.
Five key takeaways from the Retirement Income Review
After months of speculation, the federal government’s Retirement Income Review has finally been made public. The report, led by former senior bureaucrat Mike Callahan, didn’t make recommendations, but its findings speak for themselves. So, what have we learnt? 1. Most Australians can expect a comfortable retirement At the core of the report is a good news story: Most retirees today appear financially comfortable in their retirement, and most workers today can expect the same when they retire.
JobMaker needs to be far more ambitious
JobMaker needs to be far more ambitious by Brendan Coates, Matt Cowgill and Tim Helm Published at The Conversation, 10 November 2020 The government has targeted its JobMaker Hiring Credit too narrowly. The scheme to go before the Senate this week will give employers who take on someone aged 16 to 29 years who has been on JobSeeker or a related benefit a bonus of A$200 per week, and a bonus of $100 per week if the person is aged 30 to 35 years.
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Josh Frydenberg is setting his budget ambition dangerously low
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s announcement that he’ll prioritise reducing unemployment ahead of reducing government debt is welcome news. The government is required by the Charter of Budget Honesty to develop and publish a fiscal strategy to be used in each budget.
The modest rise in unemployment hides a much grimmer picture
New ABS figures released this morning (14 May) confirm that COVID-19 has thrown a lot of Australians out of work. About 900,000 people who were employed in the first half of March no longer had a job in the first half of April. A further 750,000 people still had a job, but didn’t work any hours in April. It’s likely that the Federal Government’s JobKeeper program helped soften the blow to employment in Australia.
Don’t expect a V-shaped recovery after the pandemic
30 Apr 2020 Don’t expect a V-shaped recovery after the pandemic by Brendan Coates and Matt Cowgill Published in John Menadue – Pearls and Irritations, April 30 2020 The sight of Centrelink queues snaking around the block past shuttered shopfronts in cities, suburbs, and towns across Australia leaves no doubt that COVID-19 is having a big impact on Australian unemployment. But just how big?
Shutdown: estimating the COVID-19 employment shock
Shutdown: estimating the COVID-19 employment shock by Brendan Coates, Matt Cowgill, Will Mackey and Tony Chen Between 14 and 26 per cent of Australian workers could be out of work as a direct result of the coronavirus shutdown, and the crisis will have an enduring impact on jobs and the economy for years to come. More than half of all workers in the hospitality industry could lose their livelihoods, as will many workers in retail, education, and the arts.
Consumer confidence is at its lowest level on record
The response to COVID-19 requires that large parts of the economy are shut down – with good public health justification. It’s already apparent that this is causing a large fall in economic activity and work performed in Australia. But the size of the fall won’t be apparent in the official national accounts and labour force data for some time. We can look at more timely measures of economic activity and sentiment to gauge just how big the economic shock is that we’re experiencing.
Is it time Australia had Medicare for the mouth?
If the entire population of Perth could not access a dentist it would be considered a major health crisis. Yet new research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has found that in 2018-19 an equivalent number of Australians delayed or avoided going to the dentist, due to cost. This startling finding has prompted Matt Cowgill, from the Grattan Institute, to ask whether it’s time to get serious about funding Medicare for the mouth.
It’s time for Medicare for the mouth
22 Nov 2019 It’s time for Medicare for the mouth by Matt Cowgill Published by Croakey, Friday 22 November Another year, another set of figures showing that millions of Australians skip needed dental care because of the cost. New ABS figures show that in 2018-19, more than two million Australians – 17.6 per cent –delayed or skipped care entirely due to cost.
Using readabs
Matt Cowgill When working with time series data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), you must: Download the data; Read the data into R; and Tidy the data. The readabs package provides functions to help you with each of those steps. One key function will help streamline the process of analysing ABS time series data: read_abs() downloads, reads, and tidies the data. The separate_series() function also helps with step three, tidying the data.
Deaths of despair in Australia
Life expectancy in the United States has fallen in recent years, a distressing development for a developed country not in the grip of a major war or pandemic. The fall in American life expectancy has been largely driven by a rise in drug overdoses and suicides, particularly among middle-aged people, a phenomenon dubbed ‘deaths of despair’ by the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Here in Australia, life expectancy has continued to rise, albeit slowly.
Stage 3 of the tax cuts would return Australia to the 1950s
Stage 3 of the tax cuts would return Australia to the 1950s by Danielle Wood, Kate Griffiths and Matt Cowgill Published at The Conversation, Tuesday 2 July The first item of business when parliament resumes today will be the proposed tax cuts. They are actually three rounds of tax cuts, up to half a decade apart – each very different in its cost, beneficiaries and rationale.
Stages 1 and 2 of the tax cuts should pass. But Stage 3 would return us to the 1950s
The first item of business when parliament resumes today will be the proposed tax cuts. They are actually three rounds of tax cuts, up to half a decade apart – each very different in its cost, beneficiaries and rationale. The government’s refusal to “split the bill” holds the first and most sensible of the three hostage to the fate of the third and least affordable. Stage 3 is not due to be delivered until 2024-25, in the lead-up to the election after next.
Budget blues: why the Stage 3 income tax cuts should wait
Budget blues: why the Stage 3 income tax cuts should wait by Danielle Wood, Kate Griffiths and Matt Cowgill Federal Parliament should pass the Government’s Stage 1 tax cuts immediately but should defer consideration of the controversial Stage 3 cuts. The Stage 1 cuts would give the economy a much-needed boost at a time of low growth and stagnant wages. The Stage 2 cuts would help most Australians by giving back bracket creep and are likely to be affordable.
A better way of knowing if we’re in a recession
How do we know if we’re in a recession? The conventional measure in Australia is straightforward – if ‘real gross domestic product’ (the amount of goods and services produced in Australia, measured after taking inflation into account) falls for two consecutive quarters, we’re in a recession.
The Coalition’s tax plan will make the system less progressive. What does that mean?
Taxes can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. If high-income earners pay a larger proportion of their income in tax than low-income earners, that’s progressive. Say, for example, a person on $100,000 has to pay $25,000 in tax (25 per cent of their income), while a person on $50,000 a year has to pay $8,000 in tax (16 per cent of their income). That’s a progressive tax, because the high-income earner hands over a larger share of their income to the tax office.
Too many Australians miss out on timely dental care - Labor’s pledge is just a start
Too many Australians miss out on timely dental care – Labor’s pledge is just a start by Stephen Duckett and Matt Cowgill Published at The Conversation, Tuesday 30 April Opposition leader Bill Shorten declared on Sunday that Labor has a “vision of universal access to dental care in Australia”. Labor’s pensioner dental plan would would give aged pensioners up to A$1,000 of subsidised dental care every two years. The policy is a welcome advance, but both sides should go further.
Too many Australians miss out on timely dental care – Labor's pledge is just a start
Opposition leader Bill Shorten declared on Sunday that Labor has a “vision of universal access to dental care in Australia”. Labor’s pensioner dental plan would would give aged pensioners up to A$1,000 of subsidised dental care every two years. The policy is a welcome advance, but both sides should go further. The current system is a mess. It leaves many Australians without timely access to dental care, which only causes more painful and costly problems down the track.
The scandalous health inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians
Australians are pretty healthy overall, but not all Australians are equally healthy. The starkest inequality in Australians’ health outcomes is between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. A non-Indigenous baby boy can expect to live 80.2 years; an Indigenous baby boy only 71.6 years, a gap of 8.6 years. The gap is only slightly smaller for girls, at 7.8 years.
Your income tax questions answered in three easy charts: Labor and Coalition proposals side by side
The two major parties have kicked off the election campaign with very different policies for cuts to personal income tax. The Coalition promises its tax plan will deliver “lower, simpler, fairer taxes” while Labor says its plan is all about the “fair go”. But putting aside the spin, how do the promised tax cuts compare? Will they make the tax system more progressive, or less? And what do they mean for the budget bottom line? Tasting each plan The Coalition plan comes in three stages.
Potentially unaffordable, and it still won’t fix bracket creep. The Coalition’s $300 billion tax plan assessed
Potentially unaffordable, and it still won’t fix bracket creep. The Coalition’s $300 billion tax plan assessed by Danielle Wood, Kate Griffiths and Matt Cowgill Published at The Conversation, Tuesday 9 April The big surprise in last week’s budget was the size of new income tax cuts – A$158 billion over a decade, in addition to the A$144 billion already promised in last year’s budget. A lot of the plan doesn’t take effect until 2024-25, so it’s easy to dismiss as tax cuts on the never-never.
Potentially unaffordable, and it still won't fix bracket creep. The Coalition's $300 billion tax plan assessed
The big surprise in last week’s budget was the size of new income tax cuts – A$158 billion over a decade, in addition to the A$144 billion already promised in last year’s budget. A lot of the plan doesn’t take effect until 2024-25, so it’s easy to dismiss as tax cuts on the never-never. But given it’s a central plank of the government’s campaign for re-election, it deserves closer scrutiny. Grattan Institute The plan comes in three stages.
Which countries are most similar to Australia? Some answers might surprise you
To know how Australia is performing, we want to compare ourselves to other countries. But which ones? There are 193 countries in the world, and they vary along numerous dimensions. Even within the club of rich and rich-ish countries – the OECD – there are 36 members, ranging from Mexico to Switzerland.
Filling the dental gap
Filling the dental gap by Stephen Duckett and Matt Cowgill Published by Inside Story, Friday 22 March When Australians need to see a GP, Medicare picks up all or most of the bill. When they need to see a dentist, they are on their own. Yet there’s no compelling medical or economic reason to treat the mouth so differently from the rest of the body.
Filling the dental gap
714 words Filling the dental gap 22 March 2019 Australia needs a universal dental care scheme, but how do we get from here to there? Right: A three-stage process could ensure dental cover for everyone. busracavus/iStockphoto A three-stage process could ensure dental cover for everyone. busracavus/iStockphoto When Australians need to see a GP, Medicare picks up all or most of the bill. When they need to see a dentist, they are on their own.
2019 AFL ratings and projections
The projections on this page are based on our Elo ratings system, which is explained here. Teams are rated based on their past results, taking into account the margin of their wins or losses, the quality of their opposition and home-ground advantage. We then simulate the season 20 000 times using the team ratings. You can see our tips for upcoming games here. The projections and tips will update once a week, after the conclusion of each round.
Filling the gap: A universal dental care scheme for Australia
Filling the gap: A universal dental care scheme for Australia by Stephen Duckett, Matt Cowgill and Hal Swerissen Australia should introduce a Medicare-style universal insurance scheme for primary dental care, to ensure all Australians can go to the dentist when they need to. A universal scheme would cost an extra $5.6 billion a year, could be paid for in part by a rise in the Medicare levy, and should be phased in over 10 years.
FOOTBALLISTICS! | The Arc
Hello! Posting at The Arc this year has been sparse, just as I foresaw. Sorry about that. I’m not planning to go back to regular posting anytime soon, but I intend to eventually, when time permits. In the meantime, you can always see my Elo model’s team ratings and projections here, and tips for the forthcoming round here.
Has Australian politics become more polarised? A response to Lachlan Harris and Andrew Charlton
Is the “fundamental operating model of Australian politics breaking down?” That’s the dramatic question that Lachlan Harris and Andrew Charlton asked in their recent joint piece in the SMH, and answered with a emphatic ‘yes’. Among other things, Harris and Charlton claim that Australian politics has become more ideologically polarised over time, with both voters and candidates drifting away from the political centre.
How does your income compare?
How does your income compare? Have you ever wondered how your income compares to other Australians? Well use this calculator thing I made to look it up then. It takes your household’s after-tax income and adjusts it for the number of people in your house to give your ‘equivalised disposable household income.’ The calculator uses ABS data from 2015-16, which was released in September 2017. You can get the ABS data here. Like this:Like Loading... Related
Do state governments drag their federal counterparts down?
Do state governments drag down their federal counterparts? It’s a common theory among Australian political commentators. The 2016 election suggests the theory might be right. In the 2016 federal election, the four states/territories with non-ALP governments swung towards the ALP by an average of 5.2 percentage points. In the states where Labor held power, voters only swung towards the federal ALP by 2.6 percentage points, on average.
The FT on Brexit, re-graphed
This post is part of a series in which I try to improve graphs I find around the web. The Financial Times is home to some of the best data visualisation in the world today. They have a team of super talented graph wonks churning out all sorts of interesting charts in the kind of minimalist style I like.
How did my simulations stack up?
Throughout the 2017 AFL men’s season, I estimated each team’s chance of making the finals, like the massive nerd I am. These estimates were based on simulations using my Elo ratings – in brief, I rate each team based on their past results, then run through the remainder of the season 20 000 times and see how often each club ends up in the finals. I’m far from the only one who does this sort of thing for footy, which raises the question: how well do my Elo-based sims compare to others’ estimates?
Updated Elo ratings and projections | The Arc
Here’s what my Elo ratings system currently thinks of each team: Here’s Elo’s tips for the next round of finals: Reminder: Elo doesn’t know about player changes, so it’s oblivious to the injuries that have hit GWS. Elo has the Giants and Eagles rated pretty similarly (see above), but the home-ground advantage makes the Giants solid favourites. Given the injuries, you might think that Elo’s too confident in a Giants win; I’d agree with that. How is each remaining team’s season likely to end?
Footy Forensics AFL Which AFL teams will play finals?
Unless you're a Lions fan, rejoice! Your team still has a shot at playing September football. Brisbane is just about the only team we can confidently state won't play finals. In the period since 1994, when the AFL introduced a final eight system, 30 teams have started the season with one win from their first eight games. None of those 30 teams went on to play in September. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but if the Lions climb into the top eight from here it would be without precedent.
2017 AFL season projections | The Arc
The projections on this page are based on our Elo ratings system, which is explained here. Teams are rated based on their past results, taking into account the margin of their wins or losses, the quality of their opposition and home-ground advantage. We then simulate the season 20 000 times using the team ratings. You can see our tips for upcoming games here. The projections and tips will update once a week, after the conclusion of each round.
Joel Selwood has set a new AFL free kick record
When the Cats walked off the field after playing the Bulldogs in Round 19, they took more than just the win from the Dogs. They took a record away, too. That afternoon, Joel Selwood notched up his 585th free kick, more than any player has recorded in the AFL era, which began in 1990. Selwood overtook Bulldogs great Scott West, the previous record holder, who had notched up 584 free kicks over the course of his career.
Close games and coin tosses
Teams that do well one year tend to do well the following year, right? To check this, we can plot a team’s record in one year against their record in the previous year, as measured by the percentage of games won. If there’s a positive relationship between a team’s record in one season and their record the previous season, we’d expect to find an upward sloping trend line. If a team’s record in one year isn’t related to their record in the previous year, we’d see a flat line.
Women are under-represented in footy
Women represent 41.4 per cent of adult spectators at Aussie rules games, or at least they did in 2009-10, the last the time ABS did a survey. Despite women’s clear interest in footy, they’re severely under-represented in the broadcast media. Fox Footy doesn’t employ a single woman commentator. Women are under-represented on club boards, with only the Bulldogs having three female directors. Gold Coast don’t have a single woman on their board.
What is the worst losing streak in AFL history?
The late, rarely-lamented VFL team University managed to lose a staggering 51 games in a row between Round 4 1912 and Round 18 1914. That’s a spectacular record of ineptitude that’s highly unlikely to ever be broken in today’s equalised, egalitarian competition. The worst runs of consecutive losses we’ve seen in recent years are those of the Gold Coast (from Round 18 2011) and GWS (from Round 20 2012), in which each team lost 21 games straight, less than half University’s dismal total.
The Eagles’ worst quarters of all time
The Eagles didn’t manage to record a score in their final quarter against Adelaide in Round 12, notching up their first scoreless quarter at home in the club’s history. The Crows scored 41 points in the final term, so the score differential for the Eagles was -41. That doesn’t manage to crack the top 20 worst ever quarters for the Eagles, measured by score differential. Measured by score differential, the fourth quarter against the Crows was only the Eagles’ 37th worst quarter ever.
Is your club’s performance in 2016 driven by old campaigners or rising stars?
We’ve previously taken a look at the age distribution of each club, showing that the Bulldogs are young, the Kangaroos skew old, and Adelaide are about the league average. The previous post was based on the 22 players that each club fielded in Round 4 this year. But, of course, teams’ age profiles might look a bit different if we take the whole season thus far into account, rather than just an individual round. The chart below groups all players into one of six age groups.
Freo’s start to the season the worst ever for reigning minor premiers
The Richmond Tigers finished the home and away season a game clear on top of the table in 1982. The following season was a rude shock. The 1983 Tigers lost their first five games, before finally winning their sixth, against Hawthorn. Until now, the 1983 Tigers had the worst start to the season of any reigning minor premiers in AFL/VFL history, going all the way back to 1897.
How old is the typical Premiership team?
We’ve previously taken a look at the age distributions of the 2015 Grand Finallists and of all teams in Round 4, 2016. But that leaves a question – how old is the typical Premiership team? Six of the past seven teams have had a median age of between 26 and 28. The median, as you’ll remember from high school maths, is the age of the player in the middle of the team, if you lined up all the players from youngest to oldest.
No free lunch: higher super means lower wages
2 Feb 2020 No free lunch: higher super means lower wages by Brendan Coates, Matt Cowgill and Will Mackey Workers overwhelmingly pay for increases in compulsory superannuation contributions through lower wages. This working paper uses administrative data on 80,000 federal workplace agreements made between 1991 and 2018 to show that about 80 per cent of the cost of increases in super is passed to workers through lower wage rises within the life of an enterprise agreement, typically 2-to-3 years.
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